


Just stay with me tomorrow

by sprx77



Series: Timbitat Quarantine Bingo [9]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Episode Fix-It: s01e06 Rare Species, Episode Fix-it, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Fix-It, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25622953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprx77/pseuds/sprx77
Summary: “Jaskier.” Geralt grits his teeth, thinkingJulian AlfredfuckingPankratz. “Tell me. What’s the significance of a birth name? Why could thosespecific wordsmatter?”Or: Your soulmate's name is written somewhere on your body. Their true name. The one that was given to them when they were born. That name.Notthe one they took up as a stage-name, after Oxenfurt; not the one they made up for Vesemir as a boy.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Timbitat Quarantine Bingo [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1708987
Comments: 23
Kudos: 563





	Just stay with me tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> This square on the bingo card has been driving me NUTS but here it is! Nobody does pining quite like these two oblivious idiots.
> 
> I would like to note that the true name thing is just for soulmate purposes and being god of this verse I decree that deadnames do Not Count bc that was never your true name, just a nickname from other people you had to deal with.

Geralt is good right up until he hears it.

“And my name is Julian Alfred Pankratz, but-- Geralt?” Jaskier says, like it’s _nothing_. Perceptive as always, the bard’s eyes snapped to him as soon as he stumbled on the trail.

Geralt can only stare at his soulmate in mute shock.

“Twenty years.” He says, and no one else in the party stops, not even Yen. Soon they’re alone and Geralt doesn’t even fucking care.

His voice is scratchy and slow.

“How is it, that in _twenty fucking years_ , you never once told me your name?”

“Geralt?” Jaskier’s tone wavered, like his hands in the air, half raised in concern.

Geralt inhaled roughly, nostrils flaring.

“I--” Jaskier hurrumps. “I haven’t been that Julian and a long time, yeah? Left that name behind in Lettenhove, only ever kept enough ties to get into school.”

“Jaskier.” Geralt grits his teeth, thinking _Julian Alfred_ fucking _Pankratz_. “Tell me. What’s the significance of a birth name? Why could those _specific words_ matter?”

“Well,” The bard flounders. “ _Some_ people of course put a lot of stock into nobility, you know, carrying on the family name and all that rot.”

He speaks with his arms, broad sweeping gestures, and doesn’t pull back as Geralt approaches with purpose. He snags Jaskier’s arm and wrenches the sleeve back, baring the moonlit words burned into his wrist.

 _“Geralt Cyrinson of Zerrikania.”_ He bit out. Of course he had seen the words before. Of course he remembered the way Jaskier’s eyes had lit up to learn his name, only to frown at the Rivian moniker.

Of course, Geralt wasn’t from Zerrikania. He had never even been to Zerrikania-- few had, and fewer returned to tell about it. Geralt wasn’t an idiot; he had seen from the start the way Jaskier had stared hungrily at Téa and Véa.

Jaskier’s pupils flared wide, lush mouth dropping open in shock.

He was rendered speechless.

Normally, Geralt would savor the victory, but today he stares at his _father’s_ name scrawled across a strong forearm, at the place he was born-- or near enough to matter.

At the name he was born with.

“Wait, now, hang on-- just hang on a minute.” Jaskier’s words tumbled over each other in his haste to get them out, sucking in air as he struggled to speak. Tears gathered in his eyes. “You don’t mean to say--”

“All this time.” Geralt said flatly, a hand on his hip where the red words curved in a noble-reared hand. He wasn’t keen to strip off his armor to prove it, but he knew the words as surely as he knew his own name--

Or no, not exactly. Hm.

“I always thought Vesemir gave me that name.” He found himself saying, addressing the space between them, scant though it was. He had something like tunnel vision.

“Oh, dear heart, I had almost forgotten.” He could have cursed himself, had he a drop of magic. _Of course_ Geralt wouldn’t know his real name; of _course_. Boys were abandoned at the foot of Kaer Morhen and some, if they were unlucky, survived to become witchers.

It was the devil-tale even now, the warning of stern parents.

 _If you’re bad we’ll leave you to the monsters, and a monster you’ll become_.

Jaskier had heard it more than once, growing up, when he was still Julien in the big house in the bigger city. _Behave or I’ll give you to the witchers, boy_.

A strangled giggle broke against his lips, pressed tight. Jaskier covered his mouth.

Only he had already belonged to them, hadn’t he? Jaskier had been born with his soulmark, a sure sign that his soulmate was already born.

But everyone knew witchers didn’t have soulmates; and if they did, how would they find them? Witchers don’t so much give up their names as they’re abandoned, nameless, at the bottom of a path that killed anyone foolish enough to climb it.

Well.

Anyone human.

Jaskier stared at Geralt’s hand, no doubt covering his own mark. No-- _Jaskier’s_ mark, on Geralt’s body. The thought was enough to send him lightheaded, vision reeling.

“I need to see it.” Jaskier found himself saying, entirely unexpected. His mouth formed the words and adrenaline churned through him.

“You don’t believe me?” Geralt’s voice was low and dangerous, half an accusation and half a curse.

“Of _course_ I believe you, stupid man! I just want to _see_.” He made grabby hands.

Geralt reached out to stop his progress half way, a broad palm against Jaskier’s chest; a move perfected out of sheer habit, as surely as his swordwork and footwork and all the other terrible things he knew how to do so competently.

“Geralt.” Jaskier looked him steady on. “Don’t make me beg.”

“Hm.” The witcher said, but his eyes now were laughing. He pulled Jaskier in and brushed the hair back from his forehead, as slowly and carefully as if he had nowhere at all to be-- and nothing he’d rather be doing.

He held him like Jaskier was the most unexpected and precious gift.

Far away, the hunting party stumbles through the woods; they’ve entirely lost their chance to catch up. At this rate they’ll never make it up the mountain.

Jaskier could care less.

He could turn around right now and take Geralt with him, far from this part of the world and all the vengeful sorceress it contained. Maybe her knight would keep her here, trapped in this bit of the continent-- a bit like putting a cup over and parchment under a spider, and keeping it right where it couldn’t hurt anyone until you had something better to do with it.

Jaskier didn’t have anywhere better to put her, and Geralt wouldn’t kill her-- no matter how monstrous her intentions toward Jaskier-- so Jaskier pulled on the witcher’s hands.

“We could go to the coast.” He finds himself saying, almost soft.

“Why there?” Geralt’s gaze pulls away from the silver on his forearm, where it had inevitably fallen, and back to his eyes.

“Don’t know.” Jaskier answers, just as hypnotized. “Figure we could work out what pleases us. Take some time by the shore. Plenty of monsters.”

“Plenty of taverns at the ports.” Geralt countered, humming a few bars of _Toss a Coin_ almost teasingly.

Jaskier’s heart pounded with-- joy, probably.

He could hardly believe this was happening.

“Sounds like a plan.” He croaked, entirely sure he was dreaming. Geralt hummed, leaning in slowly-- like Jaskier was a cornered rabbit, and Geralt, well.

The wolf.

“Anywhere.” Geralt swears, and presses a heartbreakingly gentle kiss to Jaskier’s willing mouth. It’s the barest touch of lips.

“You’re _mine_.” Jaskier responds, gripping tight to Geralt’s greaves. Not a rabbit at all, of course; if anything he’s the dragon.

“Huh.” Geralt pulls back to say, almost surprised, yet clearly trying and failing to fight a smile. He nests their foreheads together. “So I am.”

Jaskier sucks in a surprised breath.

“Good.” he manages, after a moment of staring into golden eyes and a teasing smile, heart fluttering like butterfly wings. “Just.” He clears his throat. “So long as you’re aware.”

Geralt’s eyes slip closed, so close; their foreheads touching gently.

“Don’t leave me.” He says, barely audible. “I’ve never asked a damn thing from Destiny, but this. If life could give me one blessing, it would be to keep you at my side for all of my days.”

Jaskier’s heart seized.

“Geralt.” He shuddered. “ _Yes._ Always. So long as you’ll have me, I’m yours.”

The sun set over the trees behind them, tracing the path of that damned mountain; but Jaskier and Geralt never climbed it.

They went instead to the coast.

**Author's Note:**

> fucking BINGO
> 
> hit me up on tumblr i'm definitelynotaminion


End file.
